


Put On

by orphan_account



Category: Watchmen
Genre: Community: femslash_today, F/F, Femslash, Ficlet, Porn Battle, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-18
Updated: 2009-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Silhouette, her lover, their death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put On

**Author's Note:**

> Draws both on the movie and the graphic novel. Originally written for Femslash-Today's 'Summer Lightning' Porn Battle, though it's not porny.

I made up the Silhouette as someone who was all the things I wanted, and all the things I wanted to be. Isn't it funny how that can be the same thing? Queer - queer is what it is. I've always known I've been that way, since before I left the old country.

What I found out was that when I'd stripped off my old rumpled self, when I'd had that haircut and dyed the last shadow of brown out of it, when I'd painted those preposterous lines around my eyes, when I'd squeezed into that corset and that outfit, I didn't just transform. She emerged, like she'd been hidden inside my skin all this time. Suddenly I knew how to move. Suddenly, despite the whalebone, I could breathe.

My teachers had always said I'd never make it, that I was wasting my time, no matter how hard I trained at kicking and punching and slinging rope and shooting. I'd never be any good because I didn't have the drive, didn't have the resolve it takes to hurt, to enforce my will on another. I pulled back my punches, my hand trembled under the gun. Hers didn't. Doesn't. She always knows what to do.

So what does she do, when the world is exploding into joy on V-day? She walks up to a pretty little thing, so crisp and white, pushes her blackness and her sharp edges against her, kisses her, lipstick on lipstick, just like I've always wanted to. No hesitation. No apology.

But she has my face, too. I can't be her all the time, though I'd love to. Though I tried.

The nurse followed her home. Who would have thought? Followed her home and undid her. I gasped as the corset fell off me, and when I reached for her hair there was hesitance in my fingertips, but she still wanted me. God. She still wanted me. I didn't even know her name then.

She lies dead now on our bed. Her name was Alice. Alice. She loved fixing things, human or mechanical. She had a smile like a postcard, but when you wiped off the make-up she looked like no-one but herself. She was mine.

I lie down next to her, pull her arm around me and curl up, as the man behind the curtain shifts.

Hey - I can't be the Silhouette all the time.


End file.
